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2001 Film List (1 Viewer)

Seth Paxton

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Bully 8.5 of 10
From top 10 2001 thread:
I just saw one of the best indy-style murder films of the year, IMHO. It surpassed both The Deep End and In the Bedroom for me, though Bedroom and Deep End had some of the best acting of the year, the ensemble of young actors in Bully were very strong.
But Bully also had a great look, style, and was extremely well-paced. Tension and drama is maintained throughout the film. It's rare that true stories come to screen so well.
This is also "Scared Straight" for parents.
Bully goes to #17 on my list, just ahead of In the Bedroom. I recommend checking it out, it's already out on DVD. Just be ready for nudity, language, drug use, and the thought that your teenager could be running wild. I bet the truth and this film aren't very far apart however.
 

Seth Paxton

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And O 7.5 of 10
Good film and an interesting bit of translation/interpretation. I liked it but didn't love it. I found the visual style to be a bit run of the mill I guess, which kept it from excelling into the top 30 or higher. I recommend seeing it and others might even love it. For me it just ends up being a "liked".
 

Seth Paxton

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Truthfully Edwin, the whole Center of the World thing baffles me. I had heard such awful reviews and controversy and yet also a few top 10 appearances.

Then I see it and find it to be harmless, middle-of-the-road indy filmmaking. Nothing special, nothing bad. Not sure why it encites such polarizing.

Having just seen Bully I can't see anything "controversial" about the sexuality in Center. Go figure.
 

Raymond Grimmy

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Films with full theatrical releases (ie. they played for one whole week in a theater) in the US in 2001. Rated out of ***** (five) stars:

A Beautiful Mind ***1/2

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence ***1/2

A Matter of Taste ****

Amelie ***1/2

Amores Perros **1/2

Atlantis: The Lost Empire ***1/2

Audition ***

Black Hawk Down ***1/2

Brigham City ***

Burnt Money ****

Code Unknown ***

Cure ****1/2

Dinner Rush ***1/2

Divided We Fall ***

Djomeh **

Donnie Darko ***

Eureka *****

Everything Put Together *

Evolution *

Faithless **

Fat Girl **1/2

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within **1/2

Focus ***

Ghost World ***

Gohatto ***1/2

Gosford Park ****

Hedwig and the Angry Inch ***

Himalaya ***1/2

Innocence **

In the Bedroom ***

In the Mood for Love *****

Intimacy ****

Iron Monkey ***

Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back *1/2

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade ***1/2

Kandahar ***1/2

La Cienaga ***

Last Resort ***

Legally Blonde ***

L.I.E. ***1/2

Little Otik **

Lumumba ***1/2

Memento ****

Monsters, Inc. ***1/2

Moulin Rouge *1/2

Mulholland Drive ***1/2

No Man's Land ****

Our Lady of the Assassins ***

Our Song ****

Panic ***

Pearl Harbor *1/2

Sexy Beast ***

Shrek ***

Songs from the Second Floor ****1/2

Tape ***

Time and Tide ***

The Bridge ***

The Business of Strangers ***1/2

The Caveman's Valentine ***

The Circle ***

The Closet ***1/2

The Crimson Rivers **1/2

The Day I Became a Woman ****

The Deep End *1/2

The Devil's Backbone ***1/2

The Fast and the Furious ***

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ****

The Man Who Wasn't There ***

The Others ****

The Princess and the Warrior ****

The River ****

The Road Home ****

The Royal Tenenbaums ****

The Taste of Others ****

The Town is Quiet ***

The Vertical Ray of the Sun ***1/2

The Widow of St. Pierre ***1/2

Together ***1/2

Tuvalu ***

Under the Sand **1/2

Va Savoir ***

Vengo ***

Waking Life **1/2

Werckmeister Harmonies ****1/2

With a Friend like Harry ***

Shown in Film Fstival Circuits only:

Face (Kao) ***

Happy Man **

Hotel Splendide ****

Landscape (Krajinka) *1/2

Not Forgotten ****

Peppermint Candy ****1/2

Platform (Zhantai) ***

Seance (Korei) *1/2

Still yet to see:

Monster's Ball

Lantana

Iris

Last Orders

Baran

Behind the Sun

Trouble Every Day

Top 25 Films of 2001:

Masterpiece tier:

1. In the Mood for Love ***** (Wong Kar-Wai)

2. Eureka ***** (Shinji Aoyama)

3. Werckmeister Harmonies ****1/2 (Bela Tarr/Agnes Hranitzky)

4. Songs from the Second Floor ****1/2 (Roy Andersson)

5. Cure ****1/2 (Kiyoshi Kurosawa

6. The River **** (Tsai Ming-Liang)

-------------------------------------------------------------

7. A Matter of Taste **** (Bernard Rapp)

8. The Road Home **** (Zhang Yimou)

9. The Royal Tenenbaums **** (Wes Anderson)

10. Our Song **** (Jim McKay)

11. The Princess and the Warrior **** (Tom Tykwer)

12. Intimacy **** (Patrice Chereau)

13. No Man's Land **** (Danis Tanovic)

14. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring **** (Peter Jackson)

15. The Others **** (Alejandro Amenabar)

16. Burnt Money **** (Marcelo Pineyro)

17. The Day I Became a Woman **** (Marzieh Meshkini)

18. Memento **** (Christopher Nolan)

19. The Taste of Others **** (Agnes Jaoui)

20. Lumumba ***1/2 (Raoul Peck)

21. L.I.E. ***1/2 (Michael Cuesta)

22. Gosford Park ***1/2 (Robert Altman)

23. Mulholland Drive ***1/2 (David Lynch)

24. The Vertical Ray of the Sun ***1/2 (Tran Anh-Hung)

25. Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade ***1/2 (Hiroyuki Okiura)
 

Edwin Pereyra

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O :star: :star: :star: (out of four)
Good performances all around and a very interesting adaptation of the Shakespeare story.
~Edwin
 

Bill McA

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Updated with Storytelling, Todd Solondz's direct rebuke to those critics who condemn his films as exploitative freak-shows. An amusing, but somewhat slighter film compared to Happiness, but still worth watching.
Released in an uncensored 'Director's Cut' in Canada.
The Piano Teacher, with a superb Isabelle Huppert as an emotionally and sexually repressed forty-ish virgin, who's only sexual outlet to now has been through souless and mechanical porn videos. Another excellent film from one of my favorite directors, Michael Haneke. Like his other films, this is a clinical and unblinking look at subjects usually avoided in films, but completely facinating.
Metropolis, a beautiful, well-animated anime scored to a Jazz soundtrack. Featuring traditional and digital animation and inspired by the look of the 1927 Metropolis, the film looks amazing and the use of Jazz music (and Ray Charles!) works extremely well. I did find myself slightly confused at a few points, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience regardless. It's just too bad that the film is only recieving a very limited token pre-video release in North America.
 

Jason Seaver

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Updated with the Oscar-Nominated Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. It's the kind of kids' film I think I would enjoy much more as a short, but it is fitfully entertaining with a fun design sense. I'd put Osmosis Jones ahead of it in the awards derby, but I'm also not nine, and Nickelodeon knows how to amuse nine-year-olds better than anyone else. :star::star:½
 

Kristian

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Updated with a new short films column after seeing all five of the BMW Films. I also adjusted the star ratings for some of the 2001 films I've seen after much thought.
 

Seth Paxton

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Added Gosford Park 8.5 of 10
I put some comments in the top 10 of 2001 thread as a new reply. Good film, didn't quite touch me enough to make top 10, but it's sitting at #17 on my list which is still pretty solid.
I've got honestly good films already pushed out of my top 30. Hard to tell if it was a bad year when I've seen so many good films and avoided so many bad/average ones.
 

Dana Fillhart

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I've updated my list with Abre Los Ojos (not sure if this is 2001 according to Academy criteria but I've included it primarily as a comparison to Vanilla Sky) -- a solid film, 85%; and Bridget Jones's Diary, an average film brought up a notch by a very pleasing performance by Renée Zellweger (75%).
 

JohnS

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Trembling Before G-d
A semi-interesting Documentary about Orthodox Homosexuals and Lesbians. Both sides make strong points, I'm not one to judge, so I can't make a true assesment.
Some of the people's stories were nice to listen to, but really weren't great. I wished there was more 'into their lives' a little bit more.
Just felt like I wanted to know them more after wathcing the movie.
RATING=c-
Fat Girl
Not truely as shocking as I thought it was going to be.
Overall, the movie was pretty dull with me.
The older sister character was nice. I really wanted more situations with her.
The best part of the movie for me was the end. Now, I didn't like it for the rape factor. I like it for the fact of the 'decision' of fat girl. Her final words were eerie yet good.
RATING=c-
 

Brook K

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Saw 3 more, 1 of which may make my top 10 but I haven't quite decided yet.
Blackhawk Down is a fitting tribute to soldiers and the sacrifices they make for us, while accurately portraying the "fog of war" and thankfully showing the enemy to be courageous, intelligent, and tough. But the script suffers from modern Hollywood malaise and laziness. A solid B
A Beautiful Mind has an excellent performance by Jennifer Connelly, and little else to offer. I found Russell Crowe unbelieveable in the role of a scientist who seemingly never excercises and skips meals often, yet could crush my head between his biceps. I was also bothered by a story I knew to be so patently false. The best parts of the film are the relationship between Crowe and Connelly, and yet, just as the character finally turns the corner, she's basically dropped from the latter section of the film. The ending was so completely cliche I had to fight to keep from laughing to loud and spoiling the experience of the crying women in front of me. C
The Son's Room is a quietly powerful family drama that never completely escapes certain tired conventions, and yet, manages to present a fully realistic story of loss. Tangentially similar to In The Bedroom, in that they both deal with families who lose a son, the family of The Son's Room is quite happy and non-dysfunctional. The father is dissatisfied with his psychology practice and the myriad of banal problems he has to listen to everyday, but with his family, he is cheerful and an attentive father. Unlike most families shown in American films, the family communicates with each other, eats together, gets along, etc.
Of course this tableau is cracked by the accidental death of the son. With no one to blame, there is no target for the pain and hurt except to turn inward. Father and Mother drift apart, and become remote from their daughter. And while this clearly causes the daughter more emotional pain, she also has school, friends, and activities to occupy her time, thus she is able to begin a recovery that the Mother and Father cannot. The Father seeks explanations for an accidental event, and begins to project blame onto one of his patients, becoming even more dissatisfied with his work. The Mother discovers that her son had a secret girlfriend, causing her to fixate on a need to meet the girlfriend, to find this other person who loved her son.
The quality of the film lies in the believability of the performances, and the situation the chacters find themselves in. Certain aspects are a bit too cute, particularly the stereotypical problems of the psychology patients, but this does nothing to lessen the emotional responses the film delivers.
 

JohnS

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Soul Survivors
I don't know what to make of this film. I'm really confused as to what point it was getting across.
I like the look of the film., but that's pretty much it.
I give it props for a nice try.
RATING=C-

Musketeer
I thought this was a very weak attempt at a musketeer movie.
The whole substance of the movie felt completely wrong.
The only thing this had going for it was the pleasing fighting choreography. The characters were pretty thin and Justin Chambers didn't do that stellar of an acting job.
RATING=C-
 

Dana Fillhart

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I've updated my list with Black Hawk Down (finally got to see it before it left the theatres), a solid 85%; and Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (another poor attempt at depicting end-time events from a religious point of view), my worst-rated movie of 2001, at a rotten 40%.
 

Bill J

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2001 Film List
Last Updated: 3-10-02
Criteria: 2001 US Original Theatrical Release
Number of Films Seen: 25
Films (out of four)
Black Hawk Down :star: :star: :star: :star:
A Beautiful Mind :star: :star: :star: :star:
Memento :star: :star: :star: :star:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring :star: 1/2
Spy Game :star: :star: :star:
Pearl Harbor :star:
The Fast and the Furious :star: 1/2
Enemy at the Gates :star: :star: :star:
A.I. Artificial Intelligence :star: :star: :star:
Ocean's Eleven :star: :star: :star:
Along Came a Spider 1/2
Antitrust :star:
15 Minutes :star:
The Last Castle :star: :star: :star: 1/2
The Pledge :star: :star: :star:
Shrek :star: :star: :star:
Series 7: The Contenders :star: 1/2
The Score :star: :star: 1/2
Hannibal :star: :star: :star:
Jurassic Park III :star:
Planet of the Apes 1/2
Tomb Raider :star: :star:
Blow :star: 1/2
The Dish :star: :star: :star: 1/2
Apocalypse Now Redux :star: :star: :star: :star:
 

JohnS

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Haiku Tunnel
An unfunny 'Office Space' type of comedy.
It has potential, and throws in some funny stuff but fails, even before some of the jokes start.
Plus the Director, who's also the main star of the film, talks to you inbetween scenes. It gets old really fast, and sometimes annoying.
RATING=D

Iris
A great story which really has the performances making the movie. The movie kind of reminded me of the movie "Innocence", from months back.
Dench and Broadbent are terrific, but Winslett is pretty average. I really don't think she deserved a nomination, but I really liked Broadbents performance better in Moulin Rouge than here.
RATING=B
 

Jason Seaver

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Updated with Last Orders, a really quite excellent little movie. The only flaw I could find with it was having a hard time reconciling the older versions of the characters (played by some of the UK's finest) with the younger ones; they just didn't seem to match. :star::star::star:½
 

Seth Paxton

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Here are some rentals I finally got to see, plus I rewatched Sexy Beast and I'll be leaving that as an 8.5 (#20 on my list).
Atlantis - 6
I know the short run times are for kids, but this film was about 30 minutes too short. The story was choppy even by kids film standards and was a real mess. Sure it looked nice at times, but not nearly enough to make it above average.
Zoolander - 5
Half the time I thought there were hilarious parts to this film, but the other half was AWFUL. I mostly liked Ferrell and didn't like Stiller to be honest. Sort of a good idea but the script had big problems too. Split the diff and call it a 5.
Heist - 6
I like Mamat's dialog for the most part, but as a director I'm far from sold. In fact, while I like his overall story and the bits of dialog, he could stand for some script help in creating a good flow and maybe toning down the "hip" dialog. It's stops seeming hip when every person is using it. Then it becomes tedious. De Vito actually came off rather poorly in this one, sounding awkward and flat in delivery. Hackman even had some problems getting through some of this stuff. Too much, Mamat, too much.
Lagaan - 6.5
No threat to Amelie for Best Foreign film (though No Man's Land might be the real competition anyway). It's pleasant enough but rather sophomoric in execution. Much of the dialog is simplistic and delivered in the fashion of a high school play or a Backstreet Boys extended video/mini-film. The story is your standard underdog wins type story with some love interest as well.
As I understand Bollywood this is pretty par for the course. Several musical numbers (good by the way) with flowing, colorful cloth everywhere and a water scene payoff. 1 hour just for one cricket match...not exactly quick pacing.
However, I did enjoy it for what it was and was able to overlook these faults for the basic fun that the film was having. Still I couldn't help thinking that I was really just seeing a musical version of The Mighty Ducks or something. ;)
Still have Last Castle and Hearts in Atlantis to watch. Hopefully I'll be seeing No Man's Land this week too.
 

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